Some Irish cities and towns, including Dublin, Athlone, Galway and Letterkenny, are facing water supply shortages by 2013 unless extra investment and a national approach to planning for water services is put in place, a report said today.
The analysis by Forfás, the national policy advisory body for enterprise and science, said these towns could also face problems with waste-water treatment, as could Mallow and Wexford.
Forfás also revealed that about 43 per cent of water in gateway and hub towns is ‘unaccounted for’, or goes missing from the system due to leakage or other reasons before it ever reaches the consumer.
The level of unaccounted for water is highest in Tuam (76 per cent) and lowest in Dublin and Sligo (20 per cent).
The State body also said there is a “lack of transparency” in how local authorities charge for water and waste-water services for businesses. Costs vary from a low of €1.50 per metre cubed (m3) in Galway county, to the most expensive of €2.71 in Wexford.
Average water costs in the largest five Irish cities are competitive with those of other countries - €3.24 per m3 in Europe compared with €1.67 per m3 in Ireland.
It said pricing policies should be introduced which enable “full cost recovery” for water services and that there must be greater transparency and consistency in how the cost of water and waste water services are calculated by local authorities.
In its conclusions, the report urged the prioritisation of future water investment programmes in the gateway and hub towns to ensure that they can accommodate future business and population growth needs.
It also said leakage must be reduced, which will require “re-prioritisation” of the planned expenditure under the Water Service Investment Programme 2007-2009.
Forfás urged a long-term strategic approach to water services policy and planning at national level and said that to date only Dublin has developed a “long term perspective” for its future water services requirements.
On water quality, Forfás said it is “generally high”, particularly in the main urban centres.
“The outbreak of cryptosporidium in Galway city in March 2007 has served to highlight the importance of having adequate infrastructure in place to prevent contamination of water supplies. However, there are a lack of metrics for adequately monitoring and assessing the quality of the services provided to business,” the report said.
Forfás chief executive Martin Cronin said a national approach was needed on the delivery of water and waste water services.
"Currently 34 local authorities are involved in the provision of these services. Moving to a river basin district provision of services would maximise the potential for economies of scale and enable greater strategic planning and prioritisation of capital investment projects,” he said.
“Additionally, reducing the levels of water leakage occurring and encouraging greater water conservation among businesses and domestic users has the potential to reduce the level of capital investment required.”
Demand for water and waste water infrastructure capacity has grown sharply in recent years as a result of strong economic and population growth, according to the Forfás report.
Some 3.7 billion was invested in such services under the last National Development Plan (2000-2006). A further €4.75 billion has been allocated under the current NDP (2007-2013) for water and waste water treatment infrastructure. Much of this investment is targeted towards meeting the requirements of the EU Water Framework Directive.
Responding to the report, Chambers Ireland today called for the extension of water charges to all consumers to cut the amount of water wastage and conserve Ireland's water supply.
Seán Murphy, director of policy, said: "Recent occurrences have shown how important having a clean and potable water supply is for all members of the community. Accordingly, all users must pay."
"Although some claim that domestic users pay indirectly for their water supply through income tax paid to central government, local authorities are inadequately remunerated for the true cost of domestic water services,” he said.
“A dual taxation approach, involving income tax and consumption based taxes, must be seriously considered by the Government given that more than 35 per cent of the labour force does not pay any income tax at all." Mr Murphy added.
Fine Gael environment spokesman Phil Hogan said the report was "shocking", especially since €4.4 billion had been spent on water schemes between 1996 and 2006.
“If the Government concentrated on plugging the leaks and fixing the distribution network it wouldn’t have to launch expensive advertising campaigns calling for water conservation measures,” Mr Hogan said.
“We only have five years to deal with the issues raised in the Forfás report. I hope it won’t end up like most other Government reports, gathering dust on a shelf.”
Ciaran Lynch TD, Labour spokesman for local government, declared his party’s opposition to the reintroduction of water charges, noting that Labour abolished the charges when in government in 1996.
“In fact the Labour Party believes that the right to clean, potable water should be established under Irish law,” he said.
“We also believe that legislation should be brought forward to require local authorities to develop strategic water plans for their area and that investment in water treatment facilities should continue to give people full protection from pollutants.”
The Irish Business and Employers Confederation (Ibec) welcomed the report's finding that competitive, efficient water supply and waste water treatment are essential for business.
However, the organisation said it has "real concerns" about the cost, efficiency and transparency of their delivery.
"Furthermore, Irish business, which accounts for just 10 per cent of properties and 15 per cent of water connections, remains the only sector of society to pay water charges. Local authorities, as the sole provider, are exempt from the normal constraints of competition," Ibec said in a statement.